Tomb Raider - Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel

Prologue ~ Missing

London, 2003

When her parents left in the middle of the night for business, it really wasn't all that surprising. Mr. and Mrs. Bane, Doctors of Archaeology, were constantly leaving on sudden business deals and expeditions - they were away more than they were at home, and had seen more places than anyone Nora knew.

So when she woke up the next morning to find only Mary, the woman who looked after her whenever her parents were away - 'Mary Poppins' as Nora sometimes called her - Nora wasn't all that shocked when Mary told her that her parents had left in the middle of the night on urgent business. It wasn't unusual.

What was unusual, however, was the nature of it, and for a couple of reasons. One, they had apparently gotten a call late into the night and had hastily thrown some packing together and left within half an hour of receiving the call.

And two, they hadn't said goodbye to her. Mary said it was because the call was so sudden and they didn't want to wake and disturb her, it being the middle of the night. All right, she could understand that, but at the same time, she was their daughter.

She was twelve years old now, almost thirteen, and her parents sometimes brought her along on their trips - there was a lot of moving around, it was constant upheaval. The strange part was was that the older the got, the less they brought her along, which seemed backwards to her. She could understand them leaving her at home when she was younger and her joining them as she grew older, but it was the opposite and she had no idea why.

The days passed, turning into weeks, which also wasn't unusual, for trips such as these could see the Dr. Banes gone for weeks or even months on end. Nora dismissed her original wondering about the nature of this trip, concluding that it was just another one of her parents' adventures, and carried on as before.

However, when a month had gone by without any word from either of them, she really began to wonder. Her thirteenth birthday passed, still nothing.

When three months had passed, still without any trace, men in black suits arrived at the door of the Bane's house. Apparently, they were apart of the team her parents had been working with on this job - they didn't say what that job was, or go into any further detail - when her parents had suddenly disappeared without a trace, no one could find them. They were still searching, and assured Nora that they would do everything they could to try and find them. Harry and Jenny Bane were officially reported missing.

Mary helped in any way she could, but also had a young family of her own, so she couldn't be around all the time, and was around less and less the older Nora got. The older she got, the less and less she believed her Mum and Dad would be returning.

Her parents were gone, and they had left without saying goodbye.

They had always been very work-focused people, and obviously struggled balancing work and family life. It was unintentional that they let their work take priority, but this still was the case nonetheless. This unannounced leave and disappearance, however, confirmed Nora's long-held suspicions: her own parents had chosen their work over her.

She had hated archaeology and anything to do with it ever since.

(Well, that started off on a sad note! :/ Hope you all enjoyed this first chapter, though! We'll learn more about Nora and how she's coping with her parents' disappearance in the next chapter (Carol probably won't appear for a few chapters at least).

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :))